


Almost

by CasualWinchester



Series: Crush [8]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Idiots in Love, M/M, Manipulative Camille Belcourt, Misunderstandings, Past Magnus Bane/Camille Belcourt, Sad Alec, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Supportive Jace Wayland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9489977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualWinchester/pseuds/CasualWinchester
Summary: What happened to Alec after he left Magnus, before he found out the truth and admitted his love for one Magnus Bane.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have set up a twitter dedicated to all my stories and updates on when they will be published, also I will post when I have new idea's for new things. If you wanna follow that at all, https://twitter.com/CazWinchester19

 

Almost

Alec:

Halfway through the taxi ride to Mum's house I decide that it's probably not the best idea if I go there. It would be the first place they would come looking for me, if they do decide to come after me.

"Excuse me, can you take me to the nearest hotel instead?" I ask the taxi driver. He is a gruff looking old man but he seemed to be nice enough when I got into the car, so I'm not going to judge him.

"No problem my boy!" The man takes a sudden right before I could even lean back into my seat. The sudden movement jerks my body slightly until I'm squashed up against the doors. As I press against the door I could feel my phone start to vibrate. I'm worried as it who may be, but after pulling it out I find that it's only Simon. I don't know what I would've done if it were someone like Magnus or Isabelle.

I don't know if I would have the heart to ignore the call. I could see myself answering the phone and just begging them to tell me that it wasn't true. It would make me seem weak to them and that's the last thing I need. I don't want them having that over my head, especially in a time like this.

Part of me wants to take the step and actually call Magnus. I want to talk to him so badly, to find out why he would do this or if Camille was even telling the truth.

I don't want to believe that someone as wonderful and special to me as Magnus, could ever do something like this. Then I remember he has a long history with Camille and she is way better looking than I, it would only make sense for him to still want to be with her.

I was probably on there for convenience, I mean I'm nothing special and being there as a second option is probably the only thing I could ever be. No one could find anything about me to love, I'm nothing really. I guess Magnus saw that pretty soon into whatever relationship we had.

I can't blame him, no matter how hurt I feel, couldn't blame him for taking the better option. I only wish I hadn't found out the way I did.

I feel it would've hurt less if it came from Magnus. To have it come from Camille whilst Magnus is still pretending to be into me, well it hurt's ten times more. If I never left the loft Magnus would've come home and acted as he normally did, he would come right over to me to plant a kiss on my cheek before retiring to his room to start his studies.

I guess his finals turned out to be a blessing after all. They gave me the whole of this week to have gotten used to not having Magnus around all that often. Now I'm going cold turkey, not seeing him at all.

"Here you go sonny, do you want me to help with your bags?" Asks the old driver. I hadn't even realised that we had pulled up outside a hotel.

The place looked fancy enough, nothing special or extravagant, but cosy and homey. The only thing that takes away the feeling of feeling safe in this place is the name, the Institute.

It's name contrasts against the aesthetic of the hotel. It's hard and cold and feels more like a place designed to cause pain or punish. It's almost perfect to how I feel, to what I need.

"Uh n-no it's okay I can handle it." I say to the man before handing over some money, I make sure to tip him. As I clamber out of the taxi, I pull my bags out behind me. It's not to hard to get them out of the taxi because there really wasn't that many. I didn't take much with me, just the things I knew I had before I met Magnus. I didn't want anything that he had given me or I had stolen, aka some of his shirts that I decided to sleep in when I had no clean ones of my own.

The old man waves me off once I close the door to the taxi. I smile at him as he drives away but I don't feel like the smile really reaches my eyes. Nothing could cheer me up right now. All I wanted to do was get a room so I could hide out and cry. I didn't want anyone to see me cry.

The inside of the hotel seems to transport me to a world outside of New York. It gives off a sort of ski lodge kind of vibe and it warms up the ice in my veins slightly. The place is pretty quiet too which is perfect for me, quiet is all I need right now. It's what I'm used to after using silence and isolating myself as a defence mechanism for all these years. I guess it won't be hard to slip back to what I was used to.

It would stop me from getting hurt again, not allowing anyone to get closer to me, not allowing that sort of contact ever again, physically and emotionally. Sure it would hurt my relationships with my family, as they were currently stronger than ever, but it's worth it if it means I don't ever have to feel this kind of pain again.

"Hello Sir may I help you?" The lady at the front desk asks, she looks at me a little weirdly and I realise it's because I had been standing at the front desk for a while now, just staring at the desk in front of her. I must've looked pretty creepy just standing there lost in my own head.

"Oh, I'm sorry...can I have a room please?" I say, mentally cringing at my own voice as it sounds watery and weak, like a man on the verge of tears.

"Of course you can darling," I flinch slightly at the word and she seems to realise, "are you okay sir?" thankfully she changes her mind about the terms of endearment.

"F-fine I j-just need a room..." I fiddle with my hands that have rested on the desk. They suddenly seem too big in my eyes, just another thing that Magnus probably doesn't like about me.

"How many days?" She asks as she types something into the computer in front of her.

"I uhh...I- I'm not sure." I answer. I have no idea how long it was going to take for me to find somewhere new to live.

"Well, I'll book you in for the night, you can decide if you need later, tomorrow." She smiles sweetly. "I just need your name and details?"

"Y-yeah that sounds good, thank you. The name is Alexander Lightwood" I then dig around in my wallet for my credit card. She takes it and adds in all of the details she needs. She then pulls up a small plastic key-card and swipes it on a machine.

"Okay sir, you are in room 24 and just because it looks like you need it, free deserts on us." She holds out the key card and the credit card to me, "If you need anything else, just ask for Lily." She looks at me sympathetically. I want to thank her but I can't seem to find the words. I end up just giving her a thankful nod. "Enjoy your stay Mr Lightwood."

I don't say anything back as I make my way to the elevator, suddenly desperate to get to my room. As the elevator door's close I feel my phone ringing in my pocket, pulling it out again I see that it's no longer Simon calling me, but it is in fact Jace. I want to answer but there's a bigger part of me that wants to turn my phone off and not speak to anyone. I press the decline option before silencing my phone and stuffing it back into my pocket. I will worry about everyone later, right now I just need to be alone.

Finding my room is easy enough as it is one of the first rooms I come across. Once I have opened the door, I barely spend any time looking around the room, all I know is that it matches the aesthetic of the rest of the hotel.

The first thing I do is I allow my bag to fall on the large stool at the bottom of the bed, I then move over to the curtains. They show me a beautiful late afternoon view of a park. Any other day I would take the time to appreciate it but right now I don't care for it. I pull the curtains tightly together, blocking out any natural daylight.

Once all light seems to be gone I pull my jacket and shoes off, allowing them to just fall wherever, I'm not too picky right now.

I cross back over to the bed, turning on the bedside lamp for a little bit of light. I crawl into the bed, pulling the blankets up and over my head.

I'm so cold. The heat from the lobby has gone from my veins and I am left with the ice cold feeling again. I curl up tighter into a ball to try and capture as much body heat as I could, it works only slightly.

The cold feeling makes me realise how alone I really am. I'm so much more alone than I ever was before I met Magnus. At least then my family was in tact. I had Jace and Isabelle for anything and everything, even though I was distant and told them nothing about me. I guess before all of this I was still being abused and I was still in the closet. I didn't really know what love felt like, or to be truly cared for.

Magnus basically gave me everything I had always wanted, but I don't know how much of it was real. He didn't appreciate or feel the same way about everything as I did.

At some point I had started to cry, I had no idea when but now that I have, I find it hard to stop.

So I don't. I allow myself to cry and get out all of my emotions until I fall into a deep sleep.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I have no idea what time it is when I awaken, all I know is that it's dark outside and that, by the sounds against the window, it has started to rain.

It's slightly comforting to hear. I always liked the rain, even walking in it could be soothing to me. It's just when you arrive somewhere all damp, that's the only problem I have with it.

The rain also matches the mood I'm in so I can't find any way to complain about it.

Once I have really come to and realised my surroundings, I push the blankets down off of me so I could sit up in bed. My eyes hurt and take a moment to adjust to the dull lighting of the room. I could feel that they were swollen from the crying and that I probably looked a mess because of it.

I lean over the side of the bed to see if I could see my phone of the floor anywhere, I want to know what time it is. I see it over beside my jacket, it had fallen out of the pocket when I let it fall off of me. I groan slightly at the idea of getting up but I do it anyway, slumping over and onto the floor when I get close enough, I have no energy to do anything.

When I unlock my phone I am shocked at how many missed calls and texts I have. There are 57 missed calls from Jace and the others, and there are 100+ unread messages from them. I look up at the time in the left hand corner and I immediately feel bad for not answering any of them. I had been gone for over eight hours, they would be worried sick.

I know the first places the would look would be Mum's house then if I wasn't there they would check the workplace, after that I knew they would start panicking because those would be the only two places I would usually be.

The guilt overtakes me, so even though it's late, I decide to call Jace back to let him know I was okay. I wasn't going to tell him where I was and why, I would just say enough to let him know that he doesn't have to worry.

It almost seems like Jace was waiting on my call, because almost as soon as it starts to ring, he had answered it.

  
"Alec! Oh my god, are you okay? Where are you?"

"M'fine Jace... don't worry about me, really."

"Alec... you sound like shit. No, wait sorry that's not important."

"Jace-"

"Look Alec, what you saw wasn't what you thought! Magnus isn't dating Camille."

"No, Jace it's okay I get it... I understand why he did it but please don't make excuses for him, it hurts me enough that Isabelle knew about it and didn't tell me."

"Alec can you please just listen to me- Simon not now...wait?"

"Who are you with?"

"Just Simon, we've been looking for you for hours, please let us talk to you! we can explain everything."

"I don't know Jace I-"

"If you don't let us, we're going to come find you ourselves, thanks to Simon we know where you are."

"Did you track me again? Jace you know I hate that-"

"Well stop acting so stubborn and we won't have to. Now are you going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"Ugh, fine. You can come."

"It will all be worth it big bro."

"Room 24."

With that I hang up the phone on him. Is it possible that Jace is also behind this whole thing with Magnus and Camille. It almost doesn't seem right, Jace would never do that to me. Then again I would've said the same thing about Isabelle, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

I decide not to dwell on it until I have heard what Jace and Simon have to say. So until they get there I will just turn on the TV to distract me from my own thoughts. I don't want to be thinking about Magnus or Camille right now.

Turning on the TV seems to be the worst possible idea I could've made.

The first thing it comes onto is a film, and not just any film. Dirty Dancing.

Now, the film isn't a film someone would particularly cry at, but I find myself sinking to my knees and letting the tears flow down my cheeks. The memory of Magnus and I watching this was all to fresh in my head.

Lying with Magnus, watching him more than the film as he quietly sung along to the lyrics of the songs without really noticing that he was doing it. It was one of the moment's that I realised that I might've been in love with the man. It was just something so special and something I had never lived through before. I remember thinking how that was how I wanted to spend every night, lying curled up with Magnus by my side. Both of us content with just holding each other.

I should turn it off, but I can't seem to make my body move. It's too focused on the film in front of me, my mind using it as a form of torture. Reminding me of all the moments I have had with the man I love, even the times before we were together, such as when we first met. That memory makes me flinch because I remember Camille being there with him.

The only thing that actually breaks my attention away from the film is when there's a loud knock on the door. It makes me jump slightly because before the loud noise it was pretty silent.

I stand quickly to let Jace and Simon in, making sure to wipe my eyes and cheeks free of tears. It doesn't do much to hide that I had been crying for what felt like hours. A quick glance in the mirror shows just how much of a mess I was, not even running my hand through my hair can change the state of it, it just tells me that I seriously need to brush out the knots that have formed in the back.

Jace looks relieved for a moment when I open the door, but his face turns concerned when he sees the state I was in. "Alec, bro-" He stops after that. He shakes his head then pushes me further into the room. Simon follows us in and shuts the door behind him.

"Just say what you have to say." I sigh before sinking onto the bottom of the bed. I start mentally preparing myself to talk about this. I know it's not going to be any fun, but if there is any chance that this isn't what it seems, I'm going to be ready to listen.

"Look, I know what you saw and what Camille told you must've seemed bad, but you should know that Magnus would never do that... especially not to someone like you." Jace comes to sit next to me. "I've known him slightly longer than you have, I was there when he was in a relationship with Camille and there is no way he would ever go back to here when he has a relationship like the one he has with you." Simon pulls over a chair to sit in front of us, I never noticed a chair before but then again I wasn't exactly interested in the furniture when I first arrived here.

"You didn't see Jace, she was literally feeding him his food and k-kissing his cheek." My voice breaks over the word kissing. I could never get that image out of my head. I'm so glad I only witnessed a kiss to the cheek.

"Okay I get that it looked bad, but- now I'm going to explain it in the way that Magnus, Lydia, and Isabelle told me- the only reason she was there with them today and for the past week," my eyes widen when I hear that they had all been in close proximity for a whole week, "is because Magnus needed her help for his final designs. He started them all when he was still dating her, he was her model so they were all tailored to her body and he would've wasted so much time trying to tailor them to someone else, and when it comes to the week of finals, no one has that kind of time." What Jace is saying sounds reasonable, and it would've made me feel better if it weren't for the fact that they still looked a little too close for comfort.

"But why were they acting like a couple? and Isabelle has never acted nice around Camille, so why start now? unless she knew that they were dating." Simon reaches out to pat my arm slightly to get my attention.

"She was blackmailed into acting nice to Camille, I think Camille knew that one day you would show up. She promised to help Magnus with his designs, as long as they all treated her nicely, if not then she would back out of helping and Magnus would lose the precious time he needed." My heart thuds slightly against my ribs. Could it be that this really was just a big misunderstanding?

"Camille then saw you at the college and decided to mess Magnus over one last time, payback for him breaking up with her. She knew that you would freak if you thought Magnus was still dating her, so that's what she done, took away one of the thing's Magnus most cared about." Jace finishes off the explanation.

"But she was the one who cheated on him? she has nothing to be angry about." My anger and hatred for Camille has suddenly gone through the roof. How could she do that to someone, she had no right to mess about with my relationship with Magnus! She could've ruined everything...what if she did ruin everything?

"I know, but to her it all makes sense." Simon has a look of distasted on his face. "We all knew it was her straight away, well apart from Raphael, he got a little defensive over you and actually took it out on Magnus." My eyes widen again, why would Raphael get so defensive over me? I didn't know he liked me that much. Sure I knew we were friends but I didn't know we were that close.

"She's just a raging bitch, so do you believe us?" Jace asks before I have the chance to ask Simon anymore on the whole Raphael thing.

"I believe you, and I also believe that Magnus and I have a lot to talk about." I say. We need to sit down properly at some point and discuss us, maybe then I could tell him that I loved him. Now that I know that he didn't actually cheat on me, I no longer want to keep my real feelings a secret.

"Probably best to do it in the morning, it's pretty late- well early." Jace pulls his phone out of his pocket and quickly sends a text to someone. I wonder who it was and why he felt the need to text them now. "I'll need to let someone know that you're alive. Everyone has been so worried about you."

"Yeah, we've been out for hours looking for you, Jace wouldn't even let me go for a bathroom break... speaking of which, I'm going to use the bathroom." Simon springs up from his seat and almost runs to the bathroom.

"He's been complaining for hours about that it's-" Jace stops when his phone begins to ring. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be awake, then again he would be if he's worried about you." Jace looks at me before answering his phone, pressing the loud speaker button as he does so.

 **"Helooooo I crn't phone, sad Magnus."** My heart tightens when I hear Magnus's voice, it's broken and heavy with tears and alcohol.

 _"Magnus? Are you drunk?"_ Jace looks at me worriedly. Without him even saying anything I have moved from the bed and over to where I left my shoes, I am not going to leave him in this state.

 **"Whooo me? never. Who are you?"** I fling my coat on before leaning down to grab my phone from where it was left on the floor. Magnus is clearly in some state if he can't even tell who Jace was.

 _"Magnus, It's Jace? Did you not get my message, Simon and I are with Alec in a hotel-"_ Jace is cut off by a loud yell.

 **"ALEC! the love of my- HEY!"** My heart starts to beat double time when I hear Magnus use the word love.

I begin to feel slightly worried when I hear rustling and complaining from Magnus. It's all explained a moment later when I hear the voice of my sister.

 **"Jace?"** she asks.

_"Isabelle?" Jace answers._

**"Yeah it's Isabelle, we can't talk right now he's gotten himself into a right state."** and with that the phone goes dead.

I don't even wait a second before I'm bolting out of the door, my phone pressed against my ear, already dialing Magnus's number.

I have to get to him.

I need to tell him that I love him.

**Author's Note:**

> My twitter- https://twitter.com/CazWinchester19


End file.
